Try Not To Neglect The Little Things

Do The Little Things Well

Stories about missing people, tragic accidents, close calls and broken relationships have often times come to the table of discussion with one common thread, a lot of them had something very little turn out to become very big.  Something so small eventually led the situation into some kind of unwanted major event.

A simple flat tire being repaired by an innocent bystander who stopped to help out a couple on a coastal highway has many times led to a tragic end.  We read how a car drifted to the shoulder of the road and hit the person performing the repair.  Five flares were laying in the trunk of the parked car that had the flat tire, unused.  Try not to neglect the little things in life.  We are so much in a hurry these days that we often times skip the little things.  We do not want to waste our precious little time.  We are jammed with too much to do and not enough time to do it in.  We also count the cost.  If we use the flares today, we need to stop and buy some more.  Who wants to waste our limited incomes on buying new flares when we might not need to use them?  Try not to neglect the little things in life.  They matter more than we think.

I saw flares on a shelf in a hardware store the other day.  They were marked $1.19 each.  I wonder how much it would have cost to replace the 5 flares found in the trunk of the stopped car, the one that already had the trunk wide open during the tire repair?  With four people standing on the opposite side of the automobile all chatting while they were waiting to get back on the road as the bystander stopped to help fix the flat tire.  You would think someone would consider putting out some flares to warn other drivers to slow down and pay closer attention.  Isn't that why we buy flares and place them in our trunks?  I do not think flares are a status symbol.  I do not think we buy them because we are supposed to have them because it is really popular to have them resting in your trunk.  Try not to neglect the little things.

I have had flares I did not burn when the time came to use them.  I am sure I am not alone.  That story was on the evening news last night.  The people they interviewed were shocked.  The bystander who stopped to help repair the flat tire for the 4 girls in the first car is no longer with us.  He left a wife and two children sitting in the car parked ahead on the side of the road.  Try not to neglect the little things.  The lady doing the news story on the scene mentioned the flares in her story.  She closed the story with a reminder to other drivers to try and remember to use the flares when they get into trouble on the side of the road.  She sent the reporting back to the studio after her live report with that friendly reminder.  I noticed that reporter at the scene on the side of the road was wearing a dark sweater pull over with the network news logo on the front, with a dark baseball cap also sporting the network logo.  I did not see reflector vests being worn or any flares being used for her to report from that same spot.  All of us are guilty at neglecting to do the little things.

I have seen television commercials forget to tell people when, where, who, what and why.  I have seen retail stores close on a holiday without any sign of warning placed for their customers to see.  I have seen new products brought into the mix without a featured display, a sign of mention nor a notice given to the selling staff.  I have cruised websites that leave you hanging in a place they offered for you to click, without any direction as to how to navigate what to do next.  Try not to neglect the little things.  They matter more than you could ever know.

Tragedy gets our attention.  We recognize error when a tragedy occurs.  We wonder, what about using the flares?

Try Not To Neglect The Little Things

It is so much more difficult to recognize a valuable and costly error when it does not produce an associated tragedy.  If nobody got hurt we think all is good.  When we neglect to take care of the little things in our business model, we measure how the work we did do produced what it does.  We do not often spend the effort to measure what we neglected to do and how it hurts us.  When we decide to close on Memorial Day and refrain from telling our customers we will be closed, how do they feel when they drive 30 miles to pick up some needed animal feed and discover we are not open for business that day?  I know how we feel.  I hear the comments of how we feel come from the employees and the leaders of that business model.  I hear them say, "Well, you would think the customer would know it is a holiday and would plan ahead to make sure they had enough feed for their animals."  Guess what people?  They don't.  Get used to it.  Customers are not perfect and forget important things just like you.  They also forget they have flares in their trunk.

It is your job as a well-run business to remind them.  That is one of your jobs as a business owner.  You need to learn how to solve problems better.  Try not to neglect the little things.  It matters a whole bunch.

I like these types of opportunities.  It gives my business model a great chance to separate itself from all of the other 'also-rans' in the field of competition.  It is an opportunity to reveal our model as being more sensitive to the customers needs.  It also increases volume.  Let me explain how it does that.

When customers get into a routine pattern for how they shop to solve their needs, they do what they do as a routine pattern.  Routine patterns become the efficient way customers solve problems.  They get used to using that pattern of shopping so they can squeeze as much into their busy days as they can.  They have the same time challenges you have.  They go to the grocery store when nobody else will be there to avoid the long lines and crowds.  They make lists of what to buy at the store so they cannot get side tracked and spend too much or take too much time.  These type of habits become how they shop.  When a holiday is approaching, and you plan to be closed on that holiday, what a great opportunity to take the customer off the patterns they usually use to protect themselves from spending more.  Run the radio, the newspaper, the advertisement or the signs around your doors and isles to let them know you have stocked up so they can make sure they have what they need for the weekend and holiday period.  Make sure you change some point of purchase displays next to those routine items so they will see them when they come in with a different set of shopping patterns to manage.  They are out-of-their-routine on this one trip.  Their pattern of protection has been disturbed.  This is a great time to show them more of what you do!

Try not to neglect the little things!

Your annual volume will notice the increases you were able to manage with every little piece of attention you added to the little things you do.  It matters.  Try to remember to do the little things.  Sometimes it is more than just protection or safety.  Sometimes it is good business.

Try not to neglect the little things!

You will not be recognized for the winning ways you develop in all of the little things you do.  They will go unnoticed.  However, when someone else comes on the scene to replace what you once managed, they will not be able to reach the volumes you created.  They will not notice the multiple little things you paid attention to in order to provide the better set of long term volume results.  They will spend too much time and money working on the big things that may never work in producing the high volumes you enjoy.  This is exactly how a competitor will find your presence in their market.  They will always be stumped at how your outfit does the volume it does.  You will win more often when you pay closer attention to the little things you need to do in your business affairs.

Try not to neglect the little things.  It is more than providing safety for the innocent bystander.  It can create larger volumes.

Until next time...